‘Private Practice’ keeps soaps alive

“Private Practice” (9 p.m., ABC) returns for its third season with some stomach-churning gore, flashbacks, funeral scenes and the search for a stolen newborn. Daytime soap operas, like the recently departed “Guiding Light,” may be an endangered species, but with shows as contrived and over-the-top as “Private Practice” around, the genre is still showing a healthy pulse.

Last week’s two-hour season premiere of “Grey’s Anatomy” attracted more viewers than the season openers of “CSI” and “The Mentalist.” “Grey” was picking up from a cliffhanger season ender, and it benefited from the strong debut of “FlashForward,” one of the most-watched drama debuts in years.

This season has seen two new comedies, “Hank” on ABC and “Brothers” on Fox, that have used financial setback as catalysts for a comic look at a return to hometowns and simpler lives. “The Beautiful Life: TBL,” a CW soap opera set in the fashion industry, seemed particularly out of touch with the new austerity. Last week it became the first new show of the season to get the axe. You can read only so much into that. Produced by Ashton Kutcher, “The Beautiful Life” was also ridiculous and marginally comprehensible. It probably would have been canceled even in flush times.

• TCM will look back at movies reflecting life during the Great Depression every Thursday in October, including classics made during the 1930s as well as more recent movies made about the era.

Highlights also include John Ford’s “The Grapes of Wrath” (12:30 a.m.) and the 1936 documentary short “The Plow that Broke the Plains” (2:45 a.m.), about the environmental calamity known as the Dust Bowl.

Not all of the films focus on grim times. Depression-era filmgoers flocked to the cinema to escape their troubles, making the decade a golden age of escapist comedy and fantasy. Look for “Sullivan’s Travels” and “My Man Godfrey” (Oct. 8), as well as “Gold Diggers of 1933” (Oct. 22). The festival also includes the 2000 Coen brothers’ mythical, musical send-up of Depression-era movies, “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” (Oct. 15).